Monday, November 30, 2009

Thanksgiving.... wooo...

Hello my dear friends and family!So last week was Thanksgiving.... wooo... Haha it actually wasn`t that bad. On Thanksgiving day we ate lunch with Juan and his mom. Juan and his mom are both great and it was a fun lunch. The whole day felt like a completely normal day though, nothing special. Then at night Elder Maruri and I returned to the pension to find Elder Blankenfeld and Elder Boyce waiting outside (because we had both sets of keys) holding a whole chicken, bread, and a 3L bottle of Pepsi. So we ate chicken sandwhiches with spicy mayo and pepsi. It actually felt like Thanksgiving after that.

This last week we had a ward Noche de Hogar and the missionaries (us) had to make a video of traditions in the church. Long story short, the video was made about 3 different times and was erased somehow each time. HOURS and HOURS were wasted. In the end though, the video was great and they even re-used it during their ward conference.

Ward activities here really make me appreciate ward activites back home. Here, we schedule the activity for 8pm and only 15 people showed up. By 9pm though there were over 60 luckily. The missionaries had to organize like everything, who´s going to bring food, drinks, activity, etc. And finally the day after they ask THE MISSIONARIES to clean the chapel. Let me tell you, it looked like we were cleaning up at a club or something. Chips, bottles, and trash were all over the floor. I appreciate our ward activities so much now. Truth is though, we have one of the most amazing wards in the mission. I love our ward, so working with them is great.

Two really unfortunate things that happened to me this week were: I was casually walking down the street one day when a giant dog jumps into a giant puddle of mud and splashes me all over..... Also, last night during our Noche de Hogar with Paulina and friends, one of her cats urinated on my bag....... Yeah, it smelt horrible.

Today we played fútbol on the mini-court and it was ridiculously fun. You basically play soccer on a basketball court 3v3 or 4v4. It showed us all how out of shape we are.

Best part of the week though was Sunday. Juan (17) was baptized and man was that cool. Juan is one of the elect, a golden investigator. He was found last change just by knocking. He said missionaries had never passed by before. He immediately wanted to be baptized and started keeping all commitments and commandments immediately. It`s not like he was already perfectly living everything before either. He smoked a little and drank coffee, but quit immediately. He loves going to church and going to mutual. Best thing of all was that just the other day he asked us what he has to do to become a missionary. Very cool kid.

Well there´s so much i wanna tell you but I´m out of time. I really missed home this week. LIKE CRAZY! I missed all you family, i missed Kelly, I missed my bed, Thanksgiving dinner, everything. I know that the mission has really showed me how blessed I am. I love you all and will continue to pray for you always.Love,Elder Mooney

P.S. Just had to let you know. 2 security guards just got in a fight with 3 big guys with bats here in the grocery store-ish place we`re at. They were all beating each other LIKE HARD and screaming and I saw one guy run off limping and I have no Idea what happened to the other guys?! It was kinda exciting at first, but then I got this sick to my stomach feeling. I think being a missionary is turning me into a softy. Crazy...